Strategies for obtaining compliance with medications regimens.

Case examples of doctor-patient interactions are used to examine educational strategies employed by physicians to obtain compliance with medication regimens from elderly patients. The problems addressed by the physicians included the complexities of pharmaco-therapy in the elderly (the patients each presented multiple problems involving the use of multiple medications), the limited understandings of the drugs showed by patients and their relatives; and the issue of compliance with instructions. Educational strategies that were effective are described.